ROSWELL, Ga. — For years, the Roswell Fine Arts Alliance has been looking for a place to call home, and on Saturday, Oct. 19, it finally happened.

“Since 2003, we’ve been looking for a place of our own,” said the past president of the RFAA, Lisa Swift.

And now that is exactly what they have.

Arts Center East, as it is tentatively named, has been a long time coming. Swift said that the process started back in 2011, when the RFAA began working with the Parks and Recreation Department of Roswell and talks began on renovating the Fouts Road house. Prior to becoming the home of the RFAA, the house had been used as a haunted house and was known as the Gibson House before that.

“It’s so fabulous,” said Betty Walser, current president of the RFAA. “It offers us so many opportunities that we didn’t have before.”

Among these opportunities, she says, is the ability to host workshops and classes, which were previously too costly to host due to the necessity of renting a space for each class.

In addition to this, the RFAA will have open studio days, with group painting or just for viewing the gallery.

“People can just come in and paint with each other,” said Walser. “It’s nice because we can critique each other while we’re working, or have a model. There’s a whole host of options.

“We plan to keep art on the walls here at all times,” she added.

And the goings-on of the day stood testament to that. In several of the rooms were members of the Alliance working on various media, from wood carving to gold leaf, and demonstrating their techniques for the guests of the opening.

And of course, the walls of the house are covered in art, all done by RFAA members. The current gallery is called “Celebrate,” an appropriate name for such an occasion. Galleries will be cycled regularly, with the next, “Joys of the Season,” coming in late November.

For more on the RFAA, visit them online at www.rfaa.org or at their new home at 9100 Fouts Road, Roswell.